


take me home

by seeingrightly



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 15:43:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20932676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeingrightly/pseuds/seeingrightly
Summary: “I think we should go on a date,” Newt says.Hermann looks up at him over the rim of his glasses and the newspaper he’s holding and his breakfast and their shared kitchen table.“A date?” he asks, clearly not sure yet if this deserves his full attention.“Yeah,” Newt says. “Like, I know - Iknow. We already know each other and we live together and we’retogether. But we also skipped everything.”





	take me home

**Author's Note:**

> this takes place after the first movie in that fanon setting where they go teach together in boston
> 
> this was written for an anon who requested corn maze + hayride + wine tasting (i dont know a lot about wine tasting)

“I think we should go on a date,” Newt says.

Hermann looks up at him over the rim of his glasses and the newspaper he’s holding and his breakfast and their shared kitchen table.

“A date?” he asks, clearly not sure yet if this deserves his full attention.

“Yeah,” Newt says. “Like, I know - I  _ know _ . We already know each other and we live together and we’re  _ together _ . But we also skipped everything.”

“We spent a very, very long time together first, Newton,” Hermann says, lifting his newspaper back up. “I would argue we’d already covered what dates are meant to cover a decade ago.”

“Dates are supposed to cover  _ fun _ , Hermann,” Newt says. “Not saving the world. I like the time I spend with you working and just - being together, but I think we should get to have some fun.”

Hermann sighs, but it’s not annoyed or reluctant. He knows Newt’s right, but he’s not mad about it. That’s his  _ oh, you are smart _ sigh. He puts the newspaper down entirely, and Newt grins.

Newt drives them to a harvest festival outside of the city. He’s got on his comfiest flannel and he forced Hermann into a scarf and sturdy boots that rarely see the light of day. The place is full of little kids and dogs on leashes and mud and Hermann looks a little overwhelmed before they make it from the parking lot to the entrance. Newt takes his hand.

“We don’t have to do the corn maze if you don’t want to,” Newt says, “but I love a good corn maze.”

“With your sense of direction?” Hermann scoffs instantly, so Newt leads him there as soon as they have their tickets.

The ground inside the maze is uneven and covered in trampled stalks of corn, so a few steps in Newt turns to Hermann, concerned.

“Don’t worry,” Hermann says distractly, already turning this way and that like he can see right through the walls of corn, so Newt resolves to being careful for him.

More than a few times Newt grabs Hermann’s elbow to steer him clear of a tripping hazard or a sprinting little kid or Newt himself. It’s always funny to see Hermann get into the zone like this about things that aren’t work, and still strange to see it applied to things that aren’t work that’s going to save the world. He knows they both get that way about odd things, like cooking, and videogames, and finding their lost spare key. It’s nice, though, sometimes, to find that intensity where they can still, and to see it in one another. Newt’s pretty sure it is for Hermann too, at least.

Hermann keeps saying things like “aha!” and “oh no no” as he leads Newt through the maze. He ignores Newt entirely until they’re free. Newt loves him.

“Okay,” Newt says once they’re out, knowing better than to comment on any of it, “you want some apple cider? You want a donut?”

Once they have their snacks, they get in line for the hayride, which Hermann looks deeply skeptical about.

“I suppose I don’t want to walk all the way to the field,” he says darkly, and Newt laughs and rubs his back.

“You’ll be okay,” he says. “I’ll make sure you don’t fall out.”

“Does that happen?” Hermann asks, genuinely alarmed, eyeing the toddler waiting in front of them.

“Of course not,” Newt says, not knowing the answer. “But I’ll still hold you in place anyway, huh?”

Hermann nods, taking a tiny step closer. Newt puts one arm around him once they sit down on their unsteady bale of hay and places the other on Hermann’s nearer thigh, caging him in comfortingly. Hermann is still watching the toddler with trepidation. Newt kisses his cheek.

It’s a bouncy ride, and a little hard to keep his grip on Hermann, but he does it anyway. Newt gets nervous, too, watching the toddler ricochet back and forth in the aisle between a few bales of hay and their parents’ legs. At the first stop, Hermann moves to stand, but Newt stops him.

“Yelp said to wait til the third stop,” he says, and Hermann gives him a small but intense smile.

A family with a puppy on a leash gets on, and to Newt’s surprise, Hermann appears charmed when it gets placed on the bale next to him, maybe because it isn’t making much sound or moving around much.

“Hello there,” he says.

“This is Pepper,” says a very muddy girl who got on with the puppy. “We just got her.”

“Hello, Pepper,” Hermann says politely, nodding.

Newt buries his face in Hermann’s shoulder, though he regrets it when a bump in the road makes him bash his nose against Hermann’s bony shoulder pretty hard. At the third stop, they get off the hayride, saying good-bye to Pepper first. The ground is more even and less muddy here than in the other fields, though the pumpkins are smaller, but Newt suspects that’s fine with Hermann, who follows along patiently as Newt inspects each one.

“They should provide baskets or something,” Hermann says when Newt picks up a third small pumpkin.

“Oh!” Newt says. He hands Hermann one of the pumpkins and reaches into his back pocket, where he folded up a canvas bag.

“Wonderful,” Hermann says, and Newt thinks it was meant to be sarcastic, but it misses the mark.

He tries not to take too long. He tries to fill his bag quickly. It’s just - he gets excited, and a lot of the pumpkins aren’t good enough. He doesn’t notice it’s been a while until he looks up and Hermann looks tired. Newt tosses both of the pumpkins he was debating between back onto the ground more carelessly than he should.

“Okay, I’m done,” he says.

“Are you sure?” Hermann asks. “You have a bit more room in there, I think.”

Newt carefully steps over to him and reaches out to take his hands and kiss him.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Thank you.”

Newt is ready to go back home once the hayride drops them back off near the entrance. He’s a bit tired too now that he isn’t running around anymore. But Hermann’s steps slow and Newt, holding his hand, draws to a stop too, then follows his gaze.

“Wine tasting?” he reads, and Hermann slots him a look.

“I know you have to drive, but…”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Newt says easily.

Hermann has always hated encountering Newt while he was drunk and Newt was sober. He doesn’t expect Hermann to get hammered or anything, but it’s a big show of trust for Hermann to not only agree to this but initiate it.

It’s a nice little area, picnic benches with lots of fall foliage and twinkle lights. Newt’s bag of pumpkins takes up a lot of room, but it’s still nice. Hermann holds his hand across the table as he sniffs and sips his wines and makes stupid little faces about them. He drinks a full glass on the side, though, in between samples, because he’s not  _ that _ stuffy, and then another when Newt tells him he can over his apple cider. 

He talks about work, stuff that Newt already knows, stuff that Newt isn’t supposed to know, stuff that’s a little boring and stuff that’s almost too complicated for Newt to understand it. He talks like this at home, too, but usually not so much in one go. Usually Newt isn’t just listening. He thinks maybe that’s a factor more than the alcohol - Newt could stand to take more time to just sit and listen to Hermann. He’s got all the time in the world now to talk. But this is the closest he can get to being back in Hermann’s head.

“Oh, listen to me,” Hermann says, somewhere near the bottom of his second glass, putting it down and placing a hand over his face. “Take me home, will you, Newton?”

Yes, Newt wants to say, I’m listening. I’ll take you home and I’ll listen to you forever. Keep talking and keep coming home with me.

“Come on,” he says instead, standing up and tugging on Hermann’s hand, still in his this whole time even though it’s sweaty and clammy.

He takes Newt’s hand again over the console once they’re in the car, and Hermann falls asleep before they even make it out of the parking lot, his head lolling toward the window. Newt has never had a better date.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @ [coralbluenmbr5](https://twitter.com/coralbluenmbr5)


End file.
